SARA HOLDREN: I came back to this job in August, moving up from Virginia, and feel a little bit like Thomas Jefferson-"What'd I miss?"
JACKSON MCHENRY: In the spring, because of the Tony season, there were a lot of Broadway musical revivals-Parade, Sweeney Todd, Camelot-with a "We're back from the pandemic, we're going big" bent. With Camelot, I guess we learned that Aaron Sorkin's maybe not the one to revise your musical. I did like Parade and Sweeney a lot. But the show that hit me hardest was the Encores! revival of The Light in the Piazza with Ruthie Ann Miles. It was relatively straightforward, except cast with an Asian American mother and daughter, which adds a new tension to a story about encountering all these European depictions of beauty. But there was a simple clarity to Miles's performance that was heartbreaking.
SARA: I do feel like I've noticed quite a few "modern classics" reappearing, like Brian Friel's Translations at the Irish Rep. It was like you're describing with Piazza: straightforward, beautifully acted, deeply felt but not schmaltzy. Really, it's been a great season for Irish playwrights overall.
JACKSON: You really liked the new Waiting for Godot, too.
SARA: And Druido'Casey! Both felt like exciting opportunities to revisit brilliant plays that aren't ancient and being torn apart or heavily riffed on and that also aren't brand new and attempting to speak exclusively to this moment. Absurdist comedy as a response to violence, to fascism, to fear: It's always confused me that we don't write more of this kind of material in America, given our own horror show.
Esta historia es de la edición December 18, 2023 de New York magazine.
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Esta historia es de la edición December 18, 2023 de New York magazine.
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THE BEST ART SHOWS OF THE YEAR
IN NOVEMBER, Sotheby's made history when it sold for a million bucks a painting made by artificial intelligence. Ai-Da, \"the first humanoid robot artist to have an artwork auctioned by a major auction house,\" created a portrait of Alan Turing that resembles nothing more than a bad Francis Bacon rip-off. Still, the auction house described the sale as \"a new frontier in the global art market.\"
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A STRANGE THING happened with podcasts in 2024: The industry was repeatedly thrust into the spotlight owing to a preponderance of head-turning events and a presidential-election cycle that radically foregrounded the medium's consequential nature. To reflect this, we've carved out a list of ten big moments from the year as refracted through podcasting.
THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR
THE YEAR IN CULTURE - BEST BOOKS
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IT'S BEEN a year of successful straight plays, even measured by a metric at which they usually do poorly: ticket sales. Partially that's owed to Hollywood stars: Jeremy Strong, Jim Parsons, Rachel Zegler, Rachel McAdams (to my mind, the most compelling).
THE BEST ALBUMS OF THE YEAR
2024 WAS one big stress test that presented artists with a choice: Face uncomfortable realities or serve distractions to the audience. Pop music turned inward while hip-hop weathered court cases and incalculable losses. Country struggled to reconcile conservative interests with a much wider base of artists. But the year's best music offered a reprieve.
THE BEST TELEVISION OF THE YEAR
IT WAS SURPRISING how much 2024 felt like an uneventful wake for the Peak TV era. There was still great television, but there was much more mid or meh television and far fewer moments when a critical mass of viewers seemed equally excited about the same series.
THE BEST COMEDY SPECIALS OF THE YEAR
THE YEAR IN CULTURE - COMEDY SPECIALS
THE BEST MOVIES OF THE YEAR
PEOPLE LOVED Megalopolis, hated it, puzzled over it, clipped it into memes, and tried to astroturf it into a camp classic, but, most important, they cared about it even though it featured none of the qualities you'd expect of a breakthrough work in these noisy times.
A Truly Great Time
This was the year our city's new restaurants loosened up.
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THE CHRISTMAS ENTHUSIASTS on the Strategist team gathered to discuss the oversize socks they drape on their couches and what they put inside them.
